Bihars plan size too ambitious

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar may be making a strong pitch for his party Janata Dal U in the current Lok Sabha polls on the development plank....

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar may be making a strong pitch for his party Janata Dal U in the current Lok Sabha polls on the development plank,but the Planning Commission has criticised the state for putting together too ambitious a Plan for 2009-10 despite the unavailability of adequate resources. Bihar,which has proposed a Plan size of Rs 16,000 crore,23 per cent more than 2008-09,goes to polls tomorrow.

The state accounts for 48 of the available 543 Lok Sabha seats and has the second largest number of MPs after Uttar Pradesh,which sends 80. The Plan panel has criticised the Nitish Kumar administration for failing in various priority areas such as agriculture and health,the rural employment guarantee plan and rehabilitation and reconstruction of flood-prone areas.

In a recent letter to the chief minister,Plan panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said. The budget figures for the share in central taxes show a decrease from the earlier estimates,which may further squeeze resource availability.

In the agriculture sector,the states efforts are not commensurate vis-à-vis its roadmap that promises to pump in Rs 6,000 crore. Our initial assessment is that the Plan resources for agriculture and allied sectors are not enough in 2008-09 to qualify for the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana RKVY, he said.

In the education sector,Bihar has a gap of Rs 600 crore in its share in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan SSA. In the the secondary education sector,the state requires an additional Rs 300 crore. The progress under literacy and adult education also needs special attention. The state needs to make all out efforts to improve literacy levels, he argued.

Though the Plan panel commended the state for taking a number of steps for improving the health delivery mechanism by strengthening infrastructure and providing facilities under the Public Private Partnership model,it has expressed concern that the states Plan outlay for the health sector has dropped from the level in Annual Plan 2007-08. It is only marginally higher in absolute terms over the allocation in the current year.

Similarly,in the road sector,the commission asked the state to closely monitor the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana as connectivity to villages having a population of 1,000 or more would help open up the rural economy.

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Under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme NREGP,Bihar has been graded as one with low programme intensity,that is average days of employment per household less than 30 days. While NREGP is a demand-driven programme,the state continues to have low coverage of BPL households. Hence,there is an urgent need for focused and stepped up efforts in this area.

The states power sector continues to be in the doldrums. On the generation side,the Repair and Maintenance of Muzaffarpur and Barauni stations is behind schedule and the commercial offers for the two power stations are under the under the scrutiny of the Central Electricity Authority.